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“The reality of life on sidewalks is it was a lot easier to imagine grandeur than to actualize it. There was no ceremony to any given second. There were patches of gray concrete. Moving machines. People who looked impossible to interrupt. So much unconquerable space in the air. It was as if an alien species dropped a smoke bomb poisoned with monotony and anywhere a man goes, he suffocates in idleness along with every element in his immediate universe. The most important event to take place was the red crosswalk signal switching to green pedestrian travel. The closest chance of romance was playing at 5:30 p.m. in the theatre. Happiness was making it to one’s destination without embarrassment. Nothing appears achievable to a singular, puny ghost who is not aided by alcohol, a camera team, or a cheering crowd—only more sidewalk and sky.”

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“The pub. It remained the only place in the world that had not evolved into anything more sophisticated. The buildings rose, the towers hit never- ending growth spurts, the concrete sidewalks turned to polycarbonate glass billboards, and the cars drove people. But the pubs—the pubs with their gritty melancholy—endured time. No matter how advanced this species grew to be, the human heart was never short of confusion and in need of the rugged, little lullaby of alcohol and alone time.”

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“No one cares about anyone else’s life, but their own, bro. That’s the thing. We’re just selfish," said Raphael. “Some surprise us though. Those unique ones who interest us— they do something new with their body. They mean words differently. They bring us in. The people who amaze us are how we know that the selfishness inside us all along was never selfishness. We were only far from certain people.”

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“The actor blinked, hurt. He felt that chilly world of duplicity— having been given her benevolence and now her indifference. Few things burned men as much as the cold side of a woman that was once warm. They’d had her once, right in their hands, but now that woman had insensibly disappeared. Will I ever know her again? What have I done? God, how she flipped her warmth altogether like a switch! I hate not knowing her anymore, he thought. The actor tried to meet her eyes, but accepted from her composure she would not be kindled.”

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“And after some months, the exposure to beauty and wealth took a toll on his mind. He could not pinpoint it at first. Andrei thought human change came from decisions, but actually it came from observation. The brain was a special piano whose song history was never forgotten; one wrong key could destroy the instrument and necessitate years of healing. For Andrei, the multitude of wealthy guests, their walks, accommodation requests, secrets, women, and jewels had achieved his natural lust for luxury ten times over and turned him into a complete ghost.”

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“Make tea. As the water boils, you think about the “her’s” like a love list. Valerie in the 4th grade, Naomi in the 6th, Linda in high school, Sammie in college, Camille from work, and the latest one to have signed your heart and left: Sophia. You think through each girl, wondering what she’s eating for breakfast. You miss them, not because you want a relationship, but because love only works in permanent marker.”

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“I won’t lie to you—I’ve walked around entire cities looking for Diana. It wasn’t my purpose for traveling, but it was my intention whenever I asked my pals if they wanted to walk around. She’s the reason my eyes scan crowds, why I buy certain show tickets, or attend daily mass. It has been hard. She left. And hell went out of business.”

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“Throughout the years, the ugly boy had lost belief in the practicality of love. He argued there would always be a better version of a man somewhere in the world and thus, no sound reason for a woman to commit to one. Plus, he believed, there was nothing to a woman—they did not love. They chose men for certain seasons and focused to enjoy life above all, in all its grandeur, intentionally saving sincerity for the end—once they were finished. How can men with eyes not sink into depression? And if a woman ever welcomed a man as a companion, she always smelled his feelings, which were gratifying and advantageous to her, and rosily sipped a man’s glad spring of generosity until she was satiated. Andrei saw a woman’s timeline and in response, froze his heart dry and hammered it to pieces. Steel or emptiness—these were the only two available armors available and adequate to withstand the ephemeral nature of women, who he regarded not as individual people, but as a collective entity of superficial vampires. So he promised himself he’d never woo the dead.”

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“Consequently, her need for a boy who could treat her well, understand her, and hold her true, was exceedingly high. This need became so important to her and because of this citadel, she grew fearful whenever someone came close. Chelsea failed herself once more and felt as if her towers were so high in the air, she could never jump down. And it was growing taller and taller—and her life was getting shorter and shorter— and she still had no one and no one.”

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“It was hard to invest in a person when one saw how things passed. Take the ball player, for example, who dedicates his life, gets injured, and then watches the sport proceed without him. He sits on his leather couch, watching better athletes run across his television screen, younger ones on renovated fields. And he, who sacrificed his sweat, youth, and sanity to the sport and knew coaches, teammates, and even janitors at the stadium like brothers—is forced to still live afterward. His teammates said kind words before a match, hugged him after a goal, but now seem to be focused on new seasons and new goals. He gets left behind. Did none of it mean anything? He cries for the fast world to stop and says, “Slow down. This pains me. We were just here. I used to joke with you. We said we loved each other. Wait for me. Will you just wait for me?” Those hands he shook after a victory could not care for the weeping, broken-footed man hiding in the shadows of his home, once lit by the sun, once the life of the party. When Andrei walked into a job now, or even met someone for the first time, he thought: How long will it take you to forget me?”

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“Sometimes, Andrei would feel like the moon. When he dined in solitude, when he masturbated to the couple at the hotel, or when he finished a book he could tell no one around him about, he felt singular and unaccompanied, like the stupid, radiating circle stuck in the sky. His soul would glow softly, through the darkness, deadened, but there, as if solemnly leaving a light on for anyone to come join him. Andrei would feel so far away from everyone else, like a floating object in space, lost in orbit, that no hand worried about, remembered, or attempted to retrieve.”

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“Sometimes, a feeling would creep over Andrei. And actually, it would creep over the dead man’s son beside him, too. A particular awareness would swallow them both individually, in different moments in their lives, for a few seconds. They would lie in bed and out of nowhere, freeze as they remembered that all sensation would end. Everything they’d worked on would be entirely erased. Movement would cease. The visor of consciousness would be taken off. Andrei, and his new friend, would someday no longer have the capacity to try. And they would no longer remember that they could try. They would simply no longer remember.”

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“People had tried to reel Raphael in from his silence. Their attempts were precisely why he felt so uncomfortable. He did not want to be saved or included. He liked to listen. When he asked a question, it was because he wanted to know the answer. But then they turned it around to ask, “What about you?” and this bothered Raphael, who believed the speaker only returned the question out of manners and so was never a real inquiry. Raphael would be pressured to respond and endure the painful seconds of saying something someone did not want to hear. He would trace their faltering eyes, then his words would crumble into sand, and his listener would never notice because they were not interested in the first place.”

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“He frowned with difficulty at everyone’s quick transition. He felt something crack in the room. It was like the feeling an artist got when he closed up his gallery, walked upstairs to his living quarters, and stared at the window to watch his former crowd rush to party next door and forget his exhibition one martini at a time. It was like goodbye. There was an unsaid, incomprehensive quality of unfairness to endings. They lacked a transition. The guitarist’s identity, for example, was in her strumming ten seconds ago, not when she finished and looked up at the seduced crowd as “her” again. The singer’s heart was housed in his lyrics, not in his thick-accented voice that rooms never understood.”

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“A man, perhaps an inch shorter than Andrei, sensing the height comparison, slowly passed him. The stranger still wore an N-95 mask. The pandemic ended three years ago, but Andrei identified why masks were still worn by others. While millions had died from COVID-19, others silently and ashamedly rejoiced in the virus’ demands. The requirement of face masks made it mandatory for everyone to cover more than half of their face. And for those who disliked their face, they, for nearly two years, had the chance to go out in the world and not be ugly for once. Suddenly, while they were not beautiful, they were not hideous. Neutrality can do so much for someone. This period was like a gift for those with horrid teeth, large features, cystic acne, injuries, scarring, and discoloration. Never before were so many people looked straight in the eyes. Masks were some people’s only chance to show who they were. And now, when the pandemic had ended, they were back in the shadows. Large groups of people, however, as Andrei had seen, still wore them, beneath the excuse that the virus could still return. "I would love to kiss one of you on the cheek, he thought.”

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“He yawned, his face performing that universal mixture of a smile and a frown as he stretched his arms out. One was not sure why faces did this—either waking people were activating their muscles in preparation for the day or more soulfully, the smile was gratitude for life and the frown to follow was recognition of what that life entailed.”

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“Andrei was in an elusive period in life, much like a snow leopard. He’d spent a couple of years having successfully filtered out all that was terrible and ugly in his life, from old shoes to lifeless people. However, the purification finished and he had not yet found the glint of gold to replace the damned. He had nowhere to place his lifted foot. Instead, his moral foot hovered, awkwardly, a crepuscular flesh, trembling every night, unable to set itself in a correct place. He lived in that hanging imbalance every day, and some would say this period of searching takes a while. But to him, all it did was take. Not a while. The peace of his life just takes. And takes. And takes. While Andrei may not suffer from the heat of stress or common negativity that improperly placed feet do, he lived cold, in a void, without the luxury of finding a worthy arrangement for his leopard paw.”

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“Pornography did not serve him either. Andrei used to have his personal kinks and fetishes, but after a while, nothing could get him off. For a long time, the only videos he would search were the ones titled: “Who is she?” The only thing that vitalized his self-play was the prospect of some woman on the earth no one knew of and could not find. There was something infinite to these tapes, not the appearance of the girls, but the agitating dissatisfaction and momentary access of a not-so-innocent stranger who men innocently lost forever. It consisted of poorly recorded videos, posted from a smartphone or webcam, and a desperate number of melancholy comments trying to search for the mystery woman. There were plenty of these recordings. But it broke Andrei even more when eventually he knew all the girls no one knew.”

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“He kissed the wall and bent his knees. For an instant, he grew ashamed and sad. He himself was not touched very often. Andrei sensed how pathetic he must have looked, but he was much too lonely to care. He sped up and could feel the devil cheering, “Lower. Go as low as hell,” and he limboed his way into that hell. And it was freezing and it was hot. One knows they are truly gone when their own tears start to lubricate their self-play. Andrei kept going, stroking wet, painfully, finishing at the same time the man did. And then the door opened.”

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“Andrei avoided the internet as well and this evasion only added to his gloom. He loved music, especially old songs, and he loved movies, of all sorts. If he had the patience, sometimes he would read. While most of the pages he turned bored him to sleep, certain books with certain lines disarranged him. Some literature brought him to his feet, laughing and howling in his room. When the book was right, it was bliss and he wept. His room hushed with serenity and indebtedness. When he turned to his computer, however, or took out his phone, he would inevitably come across a viral trend or video that took the art he loved and turned it into a joke. The internet, in Andrei’s desperate eyes, managed to make fun of everything serious. And if one did not laugh, they were not intelligent. The internet could not be slowed and no protest to criticize its exploitation of art could be made because recreations of art hid perfectly under the veneer of mockery and was thus, impenetrable. It was easy to use Chopin’s ‘Sonata No. 2’ for a quick laugh, to reduce the ‘Funeral March’ to background music. It was a sneaky way for a digital creator to be considered an artist—and parodying the classics made them appear cleverer than the original artist. Meanwhile, Andrei’s body had healed playing Chopin alone in his apartment. He would frailly replay movie moments, too, that he later found the world edited and ripped apart with its cheap teeth. And everyone ate the internet’s crumbs. This cruel derision was impossible to escape. But enough jokes, memes, and glam over someone’s precious source of life would eventually make a sensitive body numb. And Andrei was afraid of that. He needed his fountain of hope unblemished. For this reason, he escaped the internet’s claws and only surrendered to it for e-mails, navigation, and the weather.”

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“In case you didn’t know I too went home after the ceremony And replayed the silent pauses of our failed encounter. I thought of a new clever thing I wish I said And you’ll never know it and I won’t know yours. In case you didn’t know I imagine weddings within the first hour of meeting you I felt your peek, but pretended not to look your way I looked you up online and now don’t know where to start That you whispered in my ear and I’ll masturbate To the once hot air on my neck. In case you didn’t know When I turned the corner, I cried. I thought I heard you, too. Maybe both our loved ones Share the same hospital. In case you didn’t know I wore bright colors and made the afternoon men laugh, But tonight I’ll drink to darkness because I have no one. They pay me well, but I only want that other thing— Your poetry, in case I didn’t know.”

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“He thrust his pelvis against his mattress, humping his pillow and thinking of no particular woman or memory, but merely the idea of being touched by someone—anyone. It was a sort of sorrowful pornography, masturbating to the day he would never need to masturbate. He closed his eyes and released on his sheets two fluids of desperation: semen of a lonely man and tears of a lonelier one.”

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“The best lover you could ever have will sit on this very bench 270 years from now. You two will never meet. And will never know you’ll never meet. They are, however, currently sitting with you because if you two did meet, you’d spend your time sitting as you are now. Because returning to that bench every afternoon, happily single, was like spending a day with every soul who wants to sit there too.”

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“The shit thing about beauty is only another can redeem it. You can love yourself, but because beauty is in the eye of the beholder, those without beholders aren’t beautiful. They cannot trick themselves into thinking they are. Someone has to say it. Someone has to say, “You are beautiful.” One’s beauty is like the classic fallen tree; “If no one was near the tree when it fell, did it really fall?” If people called you a beautiful baby and now you’ve grown, are you still beautiful?”

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“There will always be more exciting things. Casinos will blink with avenues of exhilaration and offers to be devilish. The shelf of alcohol behind the bar looks like it may have a good read for you. A Chinese restaurant will buzz with customers and ticket orders. A booming concert may scream it has an extra spot, with strobe lights to hide your human. Partying people do not look like people who weep. You’ll think literature has no relevance to them. But eventually, the light will die down and the world will need to return home again. The fire will give out and the coals will glow and when the rising smoke clouds our vision, we will look for what we need: hearth. And there, the ignored is seen again. Asked for. There are exciting days, but the moment our flames die and we shiver honestly in our freezing universe, we will return to our homes, coming to what we need to, like mothers, like old love poems, like stringed instruments, like heroes.”

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“He clutched the handle of the knife with the same strength the gang members used to kick him. He was worthless, like a crumpled bit of trash thrown, but not worth picking up, that doesn’t even deserve a courteous foot nudge to hide. He was unseen, like the skin beneath the toga of a female statue made of stone. He was ugly, like the damaged face of the deformed stranger you try not to look at because you don’t want it in your memory. He was as soft as the pull-tab of a soda can, as easily broken as a straw wrapper, and as close to death as a baby slug crawling next to a group of kids at summer camp.”

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“My skin yields acne in double digits—a mountainous domain of genetic misfortune. Sometimes in the morning, the pimples get so bad that if I rinse my face towards the showerhead, the water breaks the pustule and I start to bleed. So I shower the same way I behave in public: with my head down. At bedtime, I get stiff because as soon as I turn to one side and sleep, I’ll wake up with a bloody pillowcase.”

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“We have to be careful how we treat others. The human brain is a sensitive flesh that can be punctured by a single event. Based on your sentence, you can leave someone an insult they’ll never forget. You can sometimes hear this frailty when shy voices ask things like: “Can I have another bite?”, “Please call me back” or “What days do you work?”

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“And I audition and I see people in the waiting room. And I can’t help but think: there’s a very slim chance people like acting,' said Eden. 'It has too many other things. Attention. Escape. People. Spotlight. But the actual thing of acting, the kernel, has to belong to fewer people than there are actors in this city. They were kids lacking something at a young age and the splendid world of the theatre offered them that, but as soon as they found love, drama, stability, or attention from another source, they abandoned the Theatre. Imagine how sad that feels—to be abandoned. To be told you are loved, again and again, and then be told it was never the case.”

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“When you're sad, everything sad builds up. The most painfully truthful thoughts arise, uninvited and unforgiving. The brain, a devoted soldier, always successful, somehow manages to rapidly search its host's darkness. There is no escape to what is next. First, all the buried thoughts you locked in a gloomy chest are released. Second, you begin crying over what you never wanted to admit. Suddenly, you begin to cry over things you did not even know actually deeply hurt you. And sometimes, the wet physicalization of your sorrow isn't enough. Instead, a violent madness stirs in your chest and your head is polluted with a red so angry, your jaw opens to fill the earth with a scream so rare you lose a little of yourself. Your roaring voice trails in pieces, like bullet fragments in flesh, to complete the song that is Loss.”

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“Andrei perched on the rooftop of the cinema and looked out at Westwood’s nightlife bustling before him. He was mounted on the single, cream, stoned gargoyle built above in the corner of the theatre. He and his gothic animal breathed under the cold moon. Yes. He always felt like the moon—generally unnoticed by the world, that never minds—and navigated richly through his life alone and uninterrupted, like a ghost. Truth is an unobvious color. Those who attempt truth will never make billboards or conversations but usually sift in the background in awkward veritas.”

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“Look at her,” he said to himself. “Holding hands! She’s probably already camped in the woods with him! Exchanged supernatural stories. Dinner dates. Shared food! Sex in the car! Concerts! I can never reach a woman like that. She’s too experienced. What new could we do? Even if we were right for each other, I’d always feel small.” Once lonely, it seemed the evolution of lonely was getting lonelier, as if sad heads boarded a lifeboat in an ocean that naturally pulled one farther and farther apart from the coast of love. Andrei still hoped though. For that coast. That was the thing with this sailor—nothing was waiting for him, but maybe there was. Every time he met someone, his eyes were slightly far away, as if asking in his head: “It’s nice to meet you, but are you there? Did you suffer and reach that place yet? You know that place. Those in that place know that place. After Tolstoy? After a thousand movies? Will you say an honest sentence?” Oh, did he beg, secretly, for strangers to meet him on that lonely floor of life—where life, still hard, was earned, and true, and golden. The place, he cried, we recognize in media, binging in our beds, but don’t dare reach on sidewalks.”

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“He'd told Alejandra this many times, but his comments had been so small in the grand scheme of things. She now knew that the largest parts of people escaped in tiny ways, tiny words, and tiny looks. One was not permitted to let themselves go and because they gripped so tightly trying to keep together the puppet they presented, parts of identity snuck their way out of holes, and released, transforming into something like a harmless quip their lover would forget. But their lover would remember it. Afterward. The schedule of human understanding was almost always set: afterward.”

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“We sat down to eat, right?” continued Gonzales. “And so... yeah, we sat down to eat and then we talked about chairs. Chairs! That drove our conversation gooooood. And none of us wanted to talk about it, but we smiled and made the best of it. Said a bunch of smart things about chairs—and French café chairs, and shopping for one, and sofas and her thoughts on the proper cushioning. And it was very engaging, but why didn’t any of us cut the crap and say, ‘I don’t care about chairs. I want to— I don’t know—roll around in the grass with you!’ We just spend the whole couple of hours able to grasp each other’s ideas and respond perfectly, but it’s so careful that we don’t get anywhere. I don’t know why that happens. We got love all up in our heads, man. We articulate who we are, but we don’t show people. She and I are just clever. There’s no chemistry in being clever. I mean, why interview on dates man? It’s not like anyone’s gonna tell the truth. Better to lay down with her, like cubs, really be with her, and see if we want to hold each other or not. But you can’t ask someone to do that, huh?” said Gonzales, defeated.”

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“It was a situation sincere hearts find themselves in of raw, dirty discomfort they cannot share. A day-to- day, on-the-ground, actual trouble of skin and reality—like flat tires, psychotic parents, immobilized brothers—a pain that the restless world would have no patience for and so was kept secret in the shadows of tragedy along with lost people, lost things, and real life.”

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“Andrei could not guess how long the patient had been in this condition. For all he knew, the patient might not have known that smartphones existed, who the president was, or that the pandemic had even occurred. Andrei contemplated the brother’s state—and imagined a mind sinking down an infinite well of scattered thoughts and gloom. He speculated the likely craze one would result to from being imprisoned inside a room, isolated from all things and all people for years. The man had no choice but to stare at the ceiling and listen to a machine that breathed for him. He could not taste the flavor of fruit, of beer, of cheese, or any delight to the tongue. He would not know temperature. He could not scratch himself nor could he ask to be scratched. He must have lost count of the days and not know if it was a Thursday in April or Sunday in May. If a nurse said something to him, he was forfeited the human naturality to respond. If a nurse hurt him, he could not protect himself. He had memories, but no friend to create more with.”

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“Why are you leaving Los Angeles?' asked Andrei. 'Something about the city. People don’t want to see each other. Everything’s too far away. A bunch of reasons. On sidewalks everyone avoids each other; it’s weird to go up to someone. Most of all, the weather’s a lie. Too much sun, and then everyone acts like the sun. You know what I mean? There’s so much to do, but no one to do it with.”

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